Cuban-born Federico Fernández Cavada served in the Union Army during the Civil War as an engineer and topographer with the Balloon Corps, sketching Confederate forces from the air.
Image Source: Mathew B. Brady, View of Professor Thaddeus Lowe and staff inflating reconnaissance balloon, ca. 1862, Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC05111.02.1345
Col. William F. Small, a member of the 26th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, drew this map from a reconnaissance balloon. It would have been similar to the kind Federico Cavada created as an engineer and topographer in the Balloon Corps.
Col. William F. Small, “Sketch of Virginia, and the Rebel Camps and Batteries, in front of Gen. Jos. Hooker’s Division in Charles County Maryland. Made from Prof. Lowe’s Balloon, for the Commander in Chief,” December 8, 1861. National Archives and Records Administration.
